Jack Leonard

As senior editor of investigations, Jack Leonard oversees the work of a team of investigative reporters in the Los Angeles Times’ Metro section and coordinates investigative stories in other departments as well as investigative partnerships with other organizations. As a reporter, he was part of the team that exposed fraud and abuse in California’s conservatorship system, a series that won several national awards. He went on to investigate how early releases from L.A.’s jail system perverts justice and fosters more crime on the street. Later, he worked on a sweeping expose of abuse and corruption in the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department.

After a tumultuous year that included allegations of undue influence from wealthy developers and the firing of a popular leader, the California Coastal Commission has selected a new executive director.

A Stanislaus County sheriff’s deputy was shot and killed Sunday in “an execution” carried out by a wanted man who was caught hours later after he carjacked one motorist, robbed a liquor store and tried to snatch a purse from a woman in Tulare County, authorities said.

If the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office agrees to Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck’s request for criminal charges against an officer who shot and killed a homeless man in Venice last year, it would set the stage for an extremely rare kind of case in California, that of a police officer charged in an on-duty shooting.

A suspected car thief led police on a wild chase Friday that ended when he crashed in a Long Beach neighborhood, burst into a nearby home and shot two people and stabbed another before turning his handgun on himself, authorities said.

A carjacking suspect led police on a wild chase Friday that ended when he crashed in a Long Beach neighborhood, burst into a nearby home and shot two people and stabbed another before turning his handgun on himself, authorities said.

Four years before he launched the San Bernardino massacre, Syed Rizwan Farook and his friend Enrique Marquez hatched an elaborate plot to attack Riverside City College and the 91 Freeway, according to charges filed Thursday by federal prosecutors.

Federal authorities are expected to announce indictments Thursday against former Los Angeles County Undersheriff and mayor of Gardena Paul Tanaka and a retired sheriff’s captain in the ongoing investigation into excessive force and corruption in the county’s jails, according to sources familiar with the probe.